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The difference between daring and dumb comes down to calculation. It’s about assessing risks and evaluating alternatives; about recognizing a subtle shift and being prepared to exploit it.

It is about calling the fake punt when it’s the percentage play and not just the audacious one.

“It’s not made at any given moment,” Chargers head coach Norv Turner explained. “It’s based on what our plan is going in. I’m not going to tell you how many times we’ve had it called and we called it off because of a look we got. … It’s just something we have ready.”

Though the Bolts ultimately bludgeoned the Buffalo Bills on Sunday by the convincing count of 37-10, Qualcomm Stadium was awash in anxiety when a gift touchdown in the third quarter was followed by three Philip Rivers’ passes that netted only eight yards.

Facing fourth down, his lead sliced to 16-10, Turner summoned his punt team, ostensibly to kick the ball back to Buffalo. Because the line of scrimmage was the Chargers’ own 30-yard line, any other course of action appeared imprudent.

Yet there’s a reason football coaches watch more film than Roger Ebert, and a point where noticing small nuances pays off like the right number in roulette. Such a moment arose Sunday afternoon, with roughly 8:33 remaining in the third quarter, when Eric Weddle seized the day with a fourth-down dash worth 10 yards, a first down and an incalculable amount of momentum.

The fake punt sustained a drive that eventually produced a lead-padding touchdown and helped to disabuse the visitors of the notion that the Chargers were vulnerable to an ambush. If the 6-7 Bolts should somehow find their way into the playoffs — a possibility made more remote by Denver’s latest deliverance — the fake punt should be remembered as a significant step.

It should not be remembered, however, as reckless or rash, but as the product of a simple equation. When you can bring more people to the point of attack, a two-yard gain is not so much about nerve as numbers. When Turnus declared, “Fortune favors the bold,” in Virgil’s Aeneid, what he fatally failed to mention is that the bold can get butchered if they misread the battlefield.

“I know if I’ve got eight (defenders) in the box, there’s no way to run it,” Weddle said of the fake punt. “Then I saw a double (team) to my right and I knew there was a seven-man box. A seven-man box is what we’ve been looking for.”

Judging that the Chargers’ field position dictated a conservative call, the Bills had deployed their punt team to set up a return. When Weddle took his position behind the scrimmage line and just left of center, he saw that the only Buffalo defender flanking tight end Randy McMichael on the left wing was Buffalo’s willowy wideout, Derek Hagan.

Despite a 33-pound disparity in their listed weights, McMichael didn’t need to flatten Hagan in order to spring Weddle. All he had to do was to get in Hagan’s way long enough for Weddle to get around the corner. The play worked as designed — Hagan never put a hand on Weddle — and it might have worked even better were it not for the valiant pursuit of Bills safety Da’Norris Searcy.

“It was a savvy play by the Chargers coaches,” Buffalo receiver Stevie Johnson said. “It was huge.”

It was certainly huge from a momentum standpoint, but the savvy was shared. Chargers coaches identified the opportunity, but left the final decision up to the punt team’s discretion. When Turner referred to giving “the green light,” he meant that the fake punt was an option, not a direct order.

As a general rule, fake punts work best when they seem least likely. Last year, Chargers punter Mike Scifres completed a 28-yard pass to Mike Tolbert on a fourth-and-14 play from Chargers territory against Denver. The closer you get to midfield, Turner said, the more likely defenders are to warn each other to “watch the fake.”

Weddle neither saw nor heard anything to deter him Sunday.

“I’m not thinking about getting stopped,” Weddle said later. “I’m thinking about making a guy miss. I’m pretty confident I can make one guy miss. If I couldn’t, I wouldn’t be doing it.”

Though Weddle is now in his fifth NFL season, it’s only been a few weeks since he replaced Jacob Hester as the “personal protector” on the Chargers’ punt team. The change is so recent that Turner initially credited Hester with the fake punt decision during his postgame news conference.

“It’s really him,” Hester said, meaning Weddle. “I’m just trying to help him out because I’ve played the position a lot this year. When we were in the huddle, we all kind of saw it and Eric kind of asked, ‘Hey, do you think I have it?’ … We were all in (agreement) that he could run it; that it was there, and Eric made a great run.”

Told that Turner had attributed the call to Hester, Weddle smiled and said, “He’s all about Xs and Os. That’s why I love him.” Later, spotting Turner talking to a reporter, Weddle paused to correct his coach on his way out of the locker room.

“It was me,” he said.

“I know you ran it,” said Turner, only slightly embarrassed. Then, as Weddle walked away, the replay flashed through the coach’s mind.